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A Closer Look at Vance McDonald

Born on June 13th, 1990, Vance McDonald is a tight end playing American football with the Steelers out of Pittsburgh in the NFL. Prior to joining up with the Steelers, he played at Rice College before his second-round draft pick by the San Francisco49ers.

Earned all-district 24-2A honors as both a tight end and defensive end as a senior at East Chambers High School

Named the Owls' top receiver after earning the George R. Brown Award for receivers

High School Career

McDonald came into the world and grew up in Winnie, Texas, where he attended East Chambers High. While here he played for their football team, the Buccaneers, and was a three-year letterman during which time he managed to earn all-district 24-2A honors in both defensive and tight-end. He was an all-around athlete, competing in basketball, athletics, and participating strongly in the school's track team. He was part of the relay team and had exceptional personal bests of 6.28 meters and 12.53 meters in the long jump and triple jump respectively.

College Career

From 2009 to 2012, McDonald played for the Rice Owls Football program while in attendance at Rice University. All-Freshman Honors for Conference USA were awarded to him after he caught 12 passes during his first season playing college football. He didn't slow down in his sophomore year, posting a career-topping eight touchdowns to go with the 395 yards he chased down off of 28 receptions.This is the form everyone keeping an eye on Steelers odds keeps in mind.

For his two final seasons, 999 receiving yards were put down in his name on 80 receptions plus seven touchdowns. As a senior, he was a first-team tight-end selection for All-C-USA. This is where he really cemented his claim as one of the premier tight-ends playing the game. His position coach during this stage of his career was David Sloan, a former Pro Bowl tight end.

NFL Career

Pre-Draft
As he was just making his way out of college, the prevailing thought among NFL analyst was that McDonald would be a second or third round pick when the draft season came around. According to his ranking by NFLDraftScout.com, he was the fourth best out of 97 available tight-ends.

He received an invitation to the NFL Combine where he was able to successfully complete all the positional drills and workouts required of him to satisfaction. When Rice's Pro Day came along, he chose to stand on the numbers he posted at the combine, only participating in the positional drills.

2013 NFL Draft
Although the son of a man that used to hold a linebacker position with the Texas Longhorns, McDonald did not really receive much in the way of attention from the established Collegiate Football programs as he was coming out of high school. One of the reasons put forward, plausibly, could be his hometown of Winnie, Texas, which boasted a somewhat minuscule population of 3,500 people. It's an easy type of place to overlook.

McDonald, however, possessed a talent that was way out of proportion to the size of his hometown, and he put that on full display during his Senior Bowl Week. With that impressive showing on his record, the San Francisco 49ers came knocking. They picked him out of the crowd during the 2013 NFL Draft as the 55th overall, second round pick.

San Francisco 49ers
The 49ers sealed a rookie contract deal with McDonald worth $3.59 million on May 24, 2013, for four years, a signing bonus of $997,584 and guaranteed earnings of $1.92 million. His season began with him paying second tight-end on the depth charting, playing his role in front of Garrett Cleek and behind the veteran Vernon Davis.

In the opening game of the 49er's season, McDonald got his hands on a 25-yard pass sent by quarterback Colin Kaepernick, marking the first catch of his professional carer as the crew fro SanFrancisco went on to win the matchup against the Gren Bay Packers 34-28. He appeared in 115 games, starting in four of them for a total haul of 118 receiving yards off of 8 receptions in his rookie season.

His first starting game of the season came on September 14th, 2004 against the ChicagoBears. He had his first catch of that season, the only one made in that game, and went for nine yards as the 49ers fell to the Bears. His second season came to a close with him posting two receptions for a haul of thirty yards coming from eight appearances and four starting games.

He wrapped up 2015 with 326 receiving yards, 30 receptions, plus three touchdowns coming from 11 starting games out of a total 14 appearances.

Pittsburgh Steelers
The 49ers traded McDonald in a package deal including their fifth-round 2018 Draft pick slot to the Steelers in return for the Steelers' fourth-round slot.

He started off his regular season playing backup tight-end, placed behind Jesse James on the depth chart. McDonald has his debut with the Steelers in their matchup against the ClevelandBrowns on September 10th, a game from which they emerged 21-18 victors.